


Survivor's Story

by Bandtrees, TheArtisticIntrovert



Category: Gloomverse (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deaf Character, Drowning, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, first fic under gloomverse on ao3 and its Death, lifetime trauma: the fanfiction, minor original characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8144998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandtrees/pseuds/Bandtrees, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtisticIntrovert/pseuds/TheArtisticIntrovert
Summary: What if not everyone at the magic show got out alive?
--
Edited by TheArtisticIntrovert!Gloomverse belongs to loverofpiggies on Tumblr!





	1. Disaster

The only thing Seaweed could see around her was water. Dark, dark water. She knew why she was underwater, she had jumped into the deep pool to avoid the golem (that had begun to fall apart) shakily looming over the stadium. 

Everything hurt. Part of her thought that the water would have given her some sort of relief from all the pain she had endured over the course of the magic show, but it didn't. Why would it have, anyway? She was under so much stress, jumping into a pool wouldn't have helped her. Seaweed shut her eyes tight, the water starting to make them sting.

She could hear the golem falling apart, deep rumbles and cracks that wouldn't sound out of place during an earthquake. She could feel her lungs burning, probably unable to hold her breath for much longer. She was so tired, so, so tired.

She didn't know what had happened to the others. Harold was most likely dead, who knows about Wallis, and Assistant... 

Assistant didn't deserve any of this. 

Seaweed opened her eyes, looking around with the best of her effort. The water blurred her vision, but she could just barely see lights above her. Paramedics? Police? Whatever it was, hopefully they could help Assistant. The girl had come too far to just die. Assistant couldn't die. Not like that.

Seaweed's chest hurt from the lack of air. Her chest had gotten its fair share of hurting today, from Wallis's odd void magic sucking all the air from her body to that cake fucker nearly breaking her wand to bouncing around the stadium with Assistant and probably breaking at least two ribs. 

'No, I'll fight with my last breath if I have to!' the water magician thought, trying to support herself despite the fact that her last breath could be coming up since she was starting to feel faint already. 

With nothing to focus on but the water surrounding her and the distant sounds of the golem falling apart, all Seaweed could do was keep her breath held and think. Was she really the only one left? Wallis was gone, Harold was probably- no, Harold was dead, Petunia's wand was cracked, Assistant was so hurt... 

If she got through this, would there be anybody for her to return home to? If not, would people like Cakegirl blame her for what happened?

Seaweed was reaching her limit. Her body ached terribly, and her face was probably turning blue from the lack of air. A piece of the golem landed in the pool, a chunk of magic cake floating a couple of inches away from her.

How Seaweed had loved the water. Her shows at the aquarium were well loved by many residents of Gloomverse, and her show with Wallis would have been an amazing act if it wasn't so rudely interrupted. She was a very popular magician of course, and she enjoyed what she did very much. She couldn't imagine doing anything else with her life. She had a good run.

Seaweed wasn't going to make it, that much she knew. She opened her eyes one last time and looked around her with a look of resignation. Then she let her breath go, finally one with the water she had worked with and loved her whole life.

\---

Harold had never seen a person crack in real life, but he knew what it looked like and it was instantly recognizable. 

The magician—no, the terrorist—before him was cracking. An unsightly break in her very body across both cheeks, looking like a broken statue. It was visibly causing her a lot of pain, skin caked in sweat that made her clothing stick to her and panting like she had just ran a marathon. But her eyes were still full of nothing but pure hate, and despite how frail her actual body looked she was still terrifying.

"Oh no." Harold's arms dropped to his side, wand weighing his left already. There was an awkward moment of silence with Cakegirl glowering at him still clutching her own wand. Harold stammered a bit, but after a fumbling of words finally managed to say "You know what? Never mind." He dropped his wand, raising both hands in surrender. "I'm letting go of my weapon, see?" The lollipop shaped staff hit the icing ground with a moist thump.

Cakegirl stared at him, looking him up and down for almost a minute before shakily standing. "Wh..." She started, but was cut off by a dry wheeze. "Why would you drop your weapon!?" Her voice raised to a shout, causing her to go into a coughing fit.

The candy magician took two careful steps towards Cakegirl. "Because I just want to talk."

Cakegirl's face scrunched into a puzzled expression, dropping to one knee again. "Talk... about what..." 

"About what you're doing to yourself!" Another step, hands still raised. "You have to stop all of this." Harold frowned a bit, hands dropping to his sides again. "I know what it's like to live in Wallis's shadow, it- it sucks. It really does...!" He forced a smile and nodded as if to emphasize his point. "And I understand you being angry about it, but..." He shook his head, back to being serious. "You're severing yourself!!" He gestured to Cakegirl's face. "You've gotta stop, 'cause otherwise if you don't..."

The pink-haired girl put a hand to her cheek, face twisting into a look of pure fury. She stood fully, legs trembling. She grasped her wand tighter with an inhuman growl. Harold let out a breath he was unaware he was holding.

"You won't be able to come back!"

Cakegirl lowered her head, matted and sweaty hair shadowing her face. She ground her teeth, lifting her wand to her chest.

"NO!!" She suddenly shouted, raising her wand over her head. A chunk of the golem levitated a bit off the ground, and before Harold could even respond, slammed into his legs. He was tossed several feet, falling off the golem and plummeting into the depths below.

Harold let out a scream, clutching his hat as he fell with one of the Lemonheads holding onto his shoe. "No! No no no!" He knew his yelling would fall on deaf ears, but that wasn't his main concern of course.

The wind loudly whistled in his ears. Harold looked at the stars as he barreled to the ground and strangely enough he smiled. They looked like they were winking at him, and for a second he thought he could even see Wallis and Petunia and all hi-

He hit the ground headfirst.

\---

BOOM!

"W-what the hell was that?!" Purple asked, coughing into his arm as the bright light from the ...explosion?... started to fade. His ears were ringing, voice probably sounding louder than he intended it to. If Evets replied he couldn't hear it.

"T-the forest... Something exploded in the forest! Or - or landed..?" He stood, using Evets's shoulder as a support. He noticed Evets's glasses had been thrown off his face, so he picked them up and gave them back to their owner.

"Evets, you um... You stay back at the tent, alright? I'll go check things out." Purple could see the Inversian's mouth moving in protest. He just lightly put his hand over it. "Shut. I'm gonna check it out, you stay here."

The professor turned a bit, then left to investigate. The white smoke, fog, whatever it was the explosion had left in its wake, still left a dreary looking blanket over the forest. It was silent, too silent. The ringing in his ears had faded, but his ears still felt like they had popped or something, not unlike the sensation one gets on an airplane.

"Hello...?" Purple called out, glancing around. "Anybody out there?" He continued walking, unsure what exactly he was looking for, but he supposed following the smoke would be his best bet. 

The smoke was starting to fade, so Purple picked up his pace. Now powerwalking through the forest, the professor didn't want to lose sight of where he was headed. He stopped at the forest's end, noticing a fallen tree. It looked like it had collapsed recently...

He took a couple of steps forward, but stopped when he felt the ground vanish beneath him. He jolted, jumping back in surprise. He looked down, seeing a massive crater that stretched across the forest's outside. It was massive, possibly larger than the forest itself. There was no doubt it was new, or that whatever caused the explosion had also caused the crater.

 

Purple stared at it quizzically for a couple of seconds, removing his glasses to wipe them clean with his shirt. He braced himself, nervously stepping down. He gripped the edges of the crater for support, still clutching his glasses in one hand. He had always hated heights...

Purple lowered himself slowly, dragging his feet to keep himself from falling. But he did, losing his grip and sliding his way down the crater to its center. His screaming in fear wasn't as manly as he would have hoped, but he wasn't hurt. He glanced behind him, then shakily stood. It was then that he realized that he had left his glasses somewhere, but he could look for them whenever he returned to camp.

He coughed roughly at the now fading smoke, thankfully not going into a fit. The smoke now clear, he could finally see what had caused the explosion and crater.

It was... a pile of what looked like broken white cement? Had a monument or statue exploded or something? Purple didn't remember any statues around this area, but then again he wasn't really focusing on the archaeology of this place, what with the whole 'terrorist attack with multiple childhood friends and ex-boyfriend possibly dead' thing. 

He stared quizzically at the pile, carefully bending down to feel it. It was a very small amount of rubble, about the size of a person rather than what one would expect a statue to be. How curious. The debris had an oddly warm feeling to it, not necessarily hot but still having a surreal sense of life to it.

He shuffled some of the broken rock aside with a hand, but his breath caught in his throat midway and he froze. Was that...? No, no it couldn't be, could it? 

Buried beneath a thin layer of white debris was Wallis's wand, reduced to splinters of wood on the ground.


	2. Neverending Strife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indigo goes on a mission.

The magic show was a disaster, that much was obvious. A chunk of the audience had been killed, alongside most of the employees that were there. It was a tragedy, a wound that would take forever to heal, and it affected all of Gloomverse's residents one way or another. Even Indigo.

It wasn't that he was traumatized or personally hurt by it, but it shook him to his very core knowing that something like that even happened. Gloomverse never had crimes aside from the occasional plagiarised newspaper, so it was quite a shock that a full-scale terrorist attack had occurred at all, let alone towards possibly the most well-loved figure in the country. 

It was strange. Nobody Indigo knew had been harmed at the show, or at least none that he was really aware of, but he would still be plagued by night terrors and jolt awake at the early hours of the morning to run to the bathroom and throw up over it. He hadn't had a decent sleep ever since the show, not that he had a decent sleep ever to begin with, but still. He was in awful shape, and he had a feeling that the rest of Gloomverse was too.

He'd gotten another mission from Madam President, something about hunting down some red and blue chicks. Truth be told, he'd zoned out through a good chunk of it, but he still got the gist. It gave him an excuse to get up and move around for the first time in two weeks, at least. 

Indigo rolled out of his bed, the place he had been moping around in (aside from the bathroom) ever since the Cakegirl Tragedy, as the press had dubbed it. He haphazardly threw on a raincoat and walked out the door, not bothering with his shades. The hospital, she said they were at? Whatever.

Just walking there was a surreal experience. There were posters and grafitti bashing Wallis on every surface Indigo could find, and the normally happy bustling streets were now almost filled with either protestors, mourners, or cops. The fact it was raining didn't help, it just gave everything an even more offbeat gloomy—heh, gloomy—vibe. It felt like he had just stepped into an alternate dimension or something, because this was not the colorful happy country he knew. Indigo pulled the hood of his raincoat over his head.

There was a crowd surrounding two people with megaphones standing on what appeared to be crates. Indigo couldn't help but pry, it was in his nature. He stopped to turn to the protesters, crossing his arms.

"Why were there no police at the show?" A tall dark skinned man with an ungodly mustache was shouting. "It's the biggest event in the country! Everyone knows the president doesn't like Wallis..."

Indigo couldn't help but crack a grin at that.

"...maybe she never assigned police, and because of her, countless innocents are dead and my daughter will never walk again!" The man continued yelling after that, but Indigo had heard enough. He continued walking away from the crowd, giggling despite himself.

"Maan, Prez..." He shook his head, adjusting the hood on his raincoat. "No matter how hard you try to make this 'bout Wallis, people will still find a way to blame you. Boy, you're gonna be fuckin' pissed!" He was now laughing like a madman, but quickly calmed himself when he caught people staring. "Right, right." He cleared his throat. "Here for business."

 

Blue was sat next to her sister's hospital bed, staring blankly at her petrified and unmoving form. She didn't remember the last time she had felt anything other than sorrow. She couldn't help but blame herself for all of this despite knowing there wasn't anything she could have done about it.

The violinist hadn't cried over Cakegirl for a week now, feeling as if there wasn't any tears left to shed. She suspected the people who knew Cakegirl had felt the same way. She wasn't sure how long it would take her to get over it. One minute her sister was her quirky but lovable self, the next she was severed in a hospital bed. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.

"This is my fault," Blue repeated for what had to be the twelfth time that week. "If we didn't leave, if we stayed a little longer by the radio..." She sniffled, reaching out to touch her sister's face but stopping when she heard Red spoke.

"It's not your fault, Blue. We didn't know she would, uh... do something like that. Even if we, knew, we, um..." Red trailed off, fidgeting with her gloves. She was visibly shaking. "..wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. You know how she i-..." She cut herself off, not bothering to finish that sentence. "Nevermind."

"Either way, it's too late." Blue held her head in her hands, voice barely a mumble. "She's gone."

"Those hospital bills are gonna be pretty damn steep, y'know what I'm sayin'?" A voice cut in behind them, a hoarse voice with an audible lisp but still having more malice in it than anything Blue had heard in her life. She whipped around, glaring at the person in the doorway. A sick looking man decked out in all purple (skin included...?) with a snide grin that had a visible tooth gap splitting his face was standing there, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"Severed patients cost a shitload to keep alive, don't they?" He laughed, a laugh that sounded like it was ripped straight from a movie villian. "I think it'd be better if she had died like everybody else, y'know?" He shrugged off his indigo-colored raincoat. "She was a terrorist, for fuck's sake. I'd be glad if she was dead and if you had any sense in you you would be t-"

He was cut off as Blue grabbed the lamp from the hospital's nightstand and hit him across the face with it. Red stared in wordless shock as the man crumpled to the floor, cursing in pain. Blue raised the lamp above her head, ready to strike again when the man spoke up once more, coughing up what looked like blood.

"So you're a psycho just like her too, huh?"

That did it. With a shout of anger that would have frightened Queen Virga herself, Blue tackled the man to the ground and struck again and again at his head. Red rushed over and tried to pull her friend off the intruder, but that didn't slow Blue one bit, still beating the living daylights out of him.

The man eventually yanked himself away from her, crawling backwards into a corner with his wand at the ready. Blue shoved Red off of her, approaching the man to hit him when he slammed his wand against the wall with a flash of bright magic...

Then everything went dark.

"Wh- huh?" Blue stopped for a second. What had just happened? A power surge? Was that this guy's magic, electricity? She dropped the lamp, taking a couple of blind steps back when she bumped into Red. She turned, trying to get her bearings in the dark.

She heard the man laugh. She whipped around to try and face him, but it was too dark to see anythi- 

ZZZZZAP!

The room lit up for a split second as the volts of electricity coursed through Blue's veins, like a light show inside of a human being. She tried to pull the man off of her, but it was no use due to her limbs jerking and convulsing from the voltage. She could just begin to see smoke rising when she finally blacked out.

Red was frozen in fear for a couple of seconds, but snapped out of it when she could sense the man approaching her. She snarled, grabbing him and trying to pry his wand from his hands. With both hands, she pulled the wand out of his grip, about to sever it when a chair was struck across her head and she too was down and out.

Indigo pulled his wand out of the unconscious girl's hands, resting his head against the wall to catch his breath. He could hear his heart pounding, the rain still pattering outside but at a much slower rate. His temple was hot and wet, probably bleeding from that bitch hitting him.

Man, this was more violent than it needed to be.

It wasn't that Indigo disliked violence, oh no. He loved it. His one dream, in fact, was to have a show where blood rained from the sprinklers and gunshots would fire on the first note. When the first verse would end, people would cry and sob. When the night was done, nobody in the audience would be breathing. Yes, that was all he really wanted.

But this violence? Not planned. Not carefully crafted yet chaotic in every way murder, just some bitch yelling at and hitting him. This wasn't the kind of violence Indigo enjoyed. He didn't like it, not one bit.

He sighed, power to the hospital coming back with a flick of his wand. He picked Red up with ease, she was a scrawny kid, but Blue he'd just have to settle for dragging. He paused, glancing at the severed Cakegirl still in her hospital bed. He shifted his arm a bit so he could touch her face.

The white 'skin' turned a translucent indigo color where he touched it. He supposed she wasn't really 'alive' after all. Huh. All that mourning the blue girl had done was for nothing, how funny. He dropped them, looking around the room and eventually finding a telephone on the nightstand. He dialed Madam President's number, speaking before she could even get a word in.

"Got the color ladies you were lookin' for, yo."


	3. Fixating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Assistant wakes up.
> 
> \--  
> Little warning for unreality/disassociation? Nothing too big...

Assistant didn't remember much from the magic show.

　

She wasn't sure if she had just repressed her memory of it, which wasn't unlikely since it was probably traumatic, or if she had just forgotten in her weary state. Either way, what with how everyone seemed so affected by it, she wasn't sure she _wanted_ to remember.

　

Everything had been hurt, she knew that, and Wallis was gone, she knew that, and she defeated—no, _murdered_ _—_ Cakegirl with her....magic, she knew that.

　

Her leg was gone, she realized about five minutes after she woke up. Nobody else was there, so she ended up fidgeting and looking around, and threw the blanket off herself and saw _everything_.

　

Needless to say, the scream of fear that followed was probably one the hospital's residents would remember for a long time.

　

Hobo visited her sometimes, and he looked older. Not like he had aged per se, but there was a tired look to him now. He looked like he had when Assistant first met him—all yellow teeth and messy hair and baggy eyes. It was clear he wasn't taking this very well.

　

This was Assistant's third day of being awake, and he was here now too.

　

"Sorry about your leg," he'd said for about the eighth time in the past couple of days.

　

"'S'okay." Assistant knew her voice was slurring from the amount of drugs and painkillers in her system, and her face grew hot with embarrassment. How stupid she probably sounded...

　

Hobo didn't seem to mind, ruffling his hair for a second before speaking up again. "If I still had my magic I could've given you, like, a mannequin leg or something." He smiled, for what was probably the first time since the magic show.

　

"What kind of magic did you have?" Assistant propped herself up, head resting on her hands as if she was a little kid waiting to hear a story. It felt kind of like history class. _And that was Swerve's Rebellion, an incident that still haunts Inverse today. Swerve was one of the few people in Inverse to be publicly executed. The Judge claimed it was to show the people what_ _—_

"Fashion magic."

　

Assistant was startled out of her thoughts by Hobo's voice. "Huh?"

　

"Fashion magic. I had fashion magic." Hobo looked at her, and she could've sworn he was talking to her as if he was trying to calm a toddler having a temper tantrum. "Y'know, like, clothes an-"

　

"I know what fashion means, Hobo." Assistant didn't mean to sound that cold, but it just came out that way. She'd been under a lot of stress, to be fair. There was another silence. "So... what happened to your magic?"

　

Hobo just shrugged. "I wouldn't have used it anyway. I didn't wanna be a fashion designer or anything. Don't really like the spotlight. I guess that's why me and Harold get along so well, huh?"

　

He laughed a bit, but even in her drugged state Assistant could tell it wasn't genuine.

　

"Hobo..."

　

He looked up at her, putting on another slightly faltering smile. "Hm?"

　

"What happened to everyone?"

　

All the color instantly drained from Hobo's face. His smile finally cracked, and Assistant could've sworn she saw him tear up. "....I.." He eventually regained his composure, fidgeting with his sleeves nervously. "...What do you already know?"

　

Assistant paused to think. Had she seen anything really happen? "I saw Wallis disappear. That's it, I think."

　

"Oh..." Hobo rolled one of his sleeves up, starting to count on his bandaged fingers. "Well, a bunch of the audience was killed. They're gonna start building a memorial statue in the plaza for everyone that died. I think they'll also hold, like, one big funeral thing where the families speak and stuff in a couple weeks." One finger.

　

"Petunia is okay...kind of. Her wand cracked a bit, so she'll be in therapy for a while and stay with the people working on her wand and hat. She's gonna try and visit us when she can, but she's...really shaken up." Two fingers.

　

"And you know Wallis's guard? He was an Inversian. Escaped, so he's safe now, but people are bashing Wallis a whole lot for keeping an Inversian in his home. People were mad at him already, but this just made it worse. There are rumors going around because of it, even saying that _you're_ an Inversian 'cause you wear black all the time."

　

"It's for the aesthetic, Hobo."

　

"Still. People are really on edge." Three fingers.

　

"Wallis vanished. We haven't gotten any updates on where he is yet or how he's doing. Some people are saying they saw his wand, like, explode, but..." There was a pause as Hobo looked away. "I don't think that's true." Four fingers.

　

"Harold died. He, uh...the girl pushed him off the golem and he fell. He hit the concrete head first...so I think he died instantly. The paramedics and stuff found him, and...you couldn't even see his face, 'cause he was all..." Hobo flapped his other hand. "...splattered." Five fingers.

　

"They found Seaweed in one of the pools after you fell. She was pronounced dead—apparently drowned. She was otherwise unharmed, but she's still, uh...dead." One hand and a finger.

　

"Your hat and wand are safe, but they're under study 'cause it's apparently a super rare type of magic. Things are really scary out there, pretty lady." He put his hands down. "This country isn't happy anymore."

　

Assistant was silent, taking everything in. Wallis was gone? People were rioting? Harold and Seaweed were...dead? Two of her, what, four friends? Two of the only people in her life who ever took her _seriously_ and didn't see her as _useless or annoying or slow or_ _—_

"Ack!! Are you okay??!!"

　

Assistant didn't even realize she was growing light headed until Hobo grabbed her and shook her back to reality. Not the best way to handle a person in this state, but he was out of options.

　

"Just..." She mumbled, trying to pull away from Hobo with little success. "Lemme- lemme get some rest. I think I need some time."

　

Hobo pulled away, frowning a bit but still nodding. "I understand. I'm here if you need me, though! This is tough on everyone..." He sighed a bit, standing and lightly patting Assistant's head before leaving. "Bai!"

　

Assistant waited until her friend was out of sight and closed the door behind him before she began to sob.

　

\---

　

Nobody visited her for some time, so she was just left alone with her thoughts, and left alone with her thoughts was probably the worst state she could be in at this point.

　

She was already lonely, but now she was even moreso. She hoped that Hobo or somebody would barge in and tell her that her friends had miraculously survived, but hoping hadn't gotten her too far the past couple of weeks.

　

She had been told she was in a coma for two weeks from the golem crushing her, but she didn't believe that. She didn't dream or even remember falling asleep. One second a pillar was filling her field of vision, the next she was wide awake in a hospital screaming her head off. If she was being honest, _this_ felt more like a dream than anything else.

　

She felt so disconnected from reality. Sure, she had shed tears over her friends' deaths, but that didn't last very long. As soon as the tears stopped flowing, she was back to her numb, unfeeling self.

　

Assistant held her head in her hands. What time was it, anyway? She couldn't tell, couldn't even tell how long she was in the hospital for. All the days blended together. Doctors barely even visited her, and she was just starting to feel like she was in some surreal Groundhog Day scenario until there was a blackout in the hospital one morning that served to remind her that yes, she was real and yes, time was passing and yes, she was alive. She wasn't sure if she wanted any of those things to be true, though.

　

The sun was beginning to rise outside, still sprinkling rain as it had been for the last couple of weeks. It was as if even the weather was mourning Gloomverse's tragedy.

　

She awkwardly shuffled her sheets off of her, wanting some relief from being buried under that big blanket and all those bandages. It felt like she was more sweat than skin. Maybe that was why she couldn't shed tears.

　

Assistant never thought she could grow used to the sight of her own leg gone, but now it just seemed like an unavoidable fact. She didn't even feel any of those 'phantom limb' phenomenon she had read about in those books from Steamverse, and wondered if that was normal, but then reassured herself that she could barely feel anything physically let alone something that would just be a figment of her imagination at the end of the day.

　

She pushed herself out of bed and very carefully stood on her remaining leg, clutching her nightstand for support. She didn't think she would adapt to losing a leg this fast, but the shock of it happening had since worn off and it was now more of an annoyance than anything else.

　

With hoarse grunts of frustration, Assistant managed to maneuver her way to the window. It was barely sunrise, yet people were already out protesting. It was a mystery to her how anyone could get any sleep with all this happening.

　

A group of teenagers that were probably around her age were vandalizing a picture of her and Wallis, and though it was a number of stories down she could clearly see the word scribbled in giant black letters across Wallis's face.

　

Criminal.

She could feel herself grow nauseous at the sight of that. It wasn't Wallis's fault. As far as Assistant knew, Wallis was always right and always had the best intentions. He didn't disappear at the magic show out of cowardice, did he?

　

...did he...?

　

Assistant shook her head in stress, stumbling back to her bed and carefully sitting down. There was the laughter of those teenagers outside, but she tried to ignore them. If things were normal, she'd probably just be drinking tea in her bed right about now reading Purple's book and asking Wallis for the meaning of all the words.

　

But things _weren't_ normal.

　

She hadn't read Purple's book yet. It was in her bag somewhere, probably. Purple himself had signed it and left some motivational quote for her on the inside of it. Wallis had told her that the first bunch of copies were signed and with some positive message on the inside. She felt a little lucky knowing she had gotten a copy of it so early.

　

She dragged her luggage out from under her bed, rummaging through the thick bag to find the book. Reading it was probably a better option than disassociating for another four days.

　

She hadn't even used most of the stuff that was in her bag. Hobo and Petunia had packed it, probably just throwing in anything that looked valuable. It was mostly just random books she hadn't read ever since summer started, that mood journal Wallis made her keep, and old schoolwork. Also a slice of cake from Seaweed's birthday in a Tupperware container that was probably a month old by now.

　

Assistant was just about to give up her search when she finally found the book. She pulled it out, victorious. Looking just as thrown-to-the-wolves as it had been when she last saw it! She leaned back a little too enthusiastically as she heard her back pop in a way that couldn't have been healthy, but she didn't care. At least there was something to distract her from all this!

　

She pried open the book and ended up losing herself in it. She didn't understand much of the terminology used or any of the examples used in it, but it did distract her. That was a good thing.

　

She was halfway through the section on Stratoverse's capture of other country's people and draining them of magic when there was a knock on her door. When she looked up, the sun was high in the sky behind the clouds.

　

"Come in!" She called to the person at the door.

　

The door slammed open, in coming a wide eyed and disheveled Hobo.

　

"They found Wallis."


End file.
